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A year-end letter to our readers

As we approach the end of 2012, let’s take a moment to reflect on this year’s successes—big and small—of Changing Lives Through Literature and other alternative sentencing programs.

Our purpose

We are the official blog of Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL)—an alternative sentencing program “based on the power of literature to transform lives through reading and group discussion,” as well-stated on the official CLTL website.

The main purpose of the Changing Lives, Changing Minds blog is to support CLTL. This blog provides a place to discuss:

CLTL and other alternative sentencing programs that reduce criminal recidivism or change lives for the better—share news, concerns, successes, difficulties, and ideas

Literature—recommend stories that inspire; talk about literary events that enlighten

Criminal justice reform and other relevant criminal justice topics of today—discuss what works and what changes still need to take place

A milestone reached: 200 posts

We reached a milestone this year—we published our 200th post. Please continue to join us as we embark on our next 200. Also, while CLTL has been around since 1991, this blog turned four years old last month. Let’s look forward to the next four years and beyond.

Thank you

Thank you for contributing your thoughts, experiences, and insights to this blog. Also, thank you for reading it! We hope you find its content meaningful and valuable.

A call to action: share your 2012 success stories

We invite you to share your CLTL (or similar program) successes of 2012. We encourage you to use this blog to share your answers to any of these questions:

How did your CLTL group or similar program succeed in 2012?

What breakthroughs were experienced?

What piece of literature did you or someone in your program find most inspiring?

For shorter comments, please use the leave a comment link at the top of this post and enter your reply. For longer comments, or to include images, submit up to 700 words to cltl@umassd.edu for publication on this blog.

We also welcome your thoughts on what you’d like to read on this blog for the upcoming year.

Again, thank you for helping to make this blog, CLTL, and similar programs a success.